Moments
by musicbendr
Summary: Previously titled His Words, Her Words. A collection of unrelated oneshots that detail one moment of the lives of different ATLA characters. An important moment in their relationship, done in a slightly strange style. Pairings: Kataang, Tokka, Jinko.
1. Katara

First fanfic! Yeah! I go the idea for this from my Creative Writing class. We were supposed to describe an interaction between two people in the class without using names or direct dialouge and see if anyone could guess who it was. This got me thinking on doing something like that for Avatar... and here is the result. All of these will be centered around the coughlovecough relationship between two people. This first one is Kataang, from Katara's POV.

Disclaimer: If I owned Avatar, do you think I would even bother with Creative Writing class? No way! I'd be too busy making sure that there would be some Kataang-ness!

She doesn't know when it started. She can't pinpoint the exact moment that she felt it. She doesn't know when he stopped being a little kid in her eyes and turned into a grown man. But never too grown. His voice has changed, but she still can here that child-like wonder in it sometimes, especially when he's talking to her. He talks to her a lot, and his eyes light up, and he's not the Avatar anymore. He's just a boy. She gets the feeling that he only wants to be a boy. Then again, she gets a lot of feelings.

She doesn't know when that feeling started. That feeling. She could sense it in him the moment he opened his eyes when she pulled him from the iceberg. And now she can sense it in herself. She doesn't want him to realize that she can tell that it's there. This feeling. She's afraid for herself, sure, but she's afraid for him, too. Afraid that it's a fling and it's not real. Afraid that it's that deep friendship that's so often mistaken for love. Because she knows that his love is real; it will last forever. And she has this feeling, but she's not sure how long it will last. She wants to find out on her own. She'll give it two weeks. No, that might not be long enough. She'll give it a month, and if it hasn't gone away by then, she'll tell him. She promises herself this.

But that one month turns into two, then three, then four, and she can't take it anymore. Her heart breaks every time that she sees him fall, but when she hugs him, she must tell her wandering mind that they are only friends. She doesn't want to break him any more than he's been broken.

Sometimes she pretends that he's her younger brother. Sisters and brothers don't like each other like that. She would never like her older brother like that. She also knows that sisters don't stare at their brothers while they swim around in their bathing suits. But she can't help herself. She just does it. He's gotten stronger over the last four months, and become toned. He doesn't have muscles as much as her past crushes had, but she likes that sort of skimpy-muscular look in a man. Or maybe she likes that look because that's what his look is.

She knows that he looks at her, too. She tries to hide her blush, but she's not sure that she's very good at it. She likes it when he gives her loving looks and smiles at her with his beautiful gray eyes. She doesn't want those moments to end, and those moments just make her want to come out and say it. She loves him, but she won't tell him. She can't tell him. He doesn't know what love is. He can't possibly be in it. Yet she doesn't know quite what it is either, but she can identify it as the feeling that forms in the pit of her stomach whenever he's around.

It becomes harder and harder to avoid the questioning glances that he gives her whenever she's in deep thought, thinking about him. She doesn't know if it's because they're getting closer and he knows her better, or if it's because she's thinking about him more. If she was a gambling woman- which she's not- she would have to bet that it was the second one- but since she's not a gambling woman, she's never going to say that anyway.

She knows that when they say that they love each other, they say it in a sibling way. She also knows that when they say that they love each other, they mean it in a boyfriend/girlfriend way. She doesn't know when she started meaning it that way, but that's what it means now. She thinks that he's always thought of it that way. She also thinks that whenever she gives him a kiss on the cheek, she used to mean it in a friendly, encouraging way, but now she's not so sure. She knows what she wants it to mean, but she'll never admit that to anyone, much less herself. So when she kisses him on the cheek, she means it in an in-between way, because she's moved past the point of saying that this feeling that she has is just a passing phase. She's moved on to denying that it even exists.

She denies it, and she becomes colder to him. She doesn't do it on purpose, but he notices, and her brother notices. He doesn't understand why, but her brother's had enough girlfriends to realize exactly what is going on.

She does this for a while, until she wakes up one night. She doesn't know why she wakes up, until she hears the muffled sobs coming from the river. She knows it's him, by instinct. She's only heard him cry once or twice before, but she will never forget the sound. To her, it's worse than the screams of pain that echo from those lost in the war. It's worse than the sound of her own tears. It's worse than the sharp crack that her waterbending makes, letting her know that she's taken someone's life. But what makes the sound almost unbearable is knowing that she caused it. So she'll just have to drown it out with her own tears, because anything is better than listening to him cry.

She realizes that she's only hurting herself by not telling him. She's hurting him, too. She realizes that soon enough he'll think that she doesn't love him because she shuns him. But that's not true. She shuns him because she loves him. And suddenly, she realizes that that makes no sense at all.

She finds him one night sitting and staring out at the stars above their heads, painting a picture against the black canvas of the sky. She can't really tell what the picture is, but he's always told her that it's a work of genius, and she's always believed him without question.

She cautiously sits down next to him. He doesn't say anything. He keeps his head down and doesn't look at her. She knows he wants to look at her as much as she wants to look at him. But since he's not looking and there's no one else around, she lets the stars look on as she looks at him unabashedly.

He asks her, irritatedly, what she wants from him. She's already hurt him enough. She's ignored him. She's taken his soul and crumbled it into pieces so small that he can't even figure out how to put them back together. She has his heart, his soul, his mind, his spirit, his body, his life. What more could she possibly want from him when he has nothing more to give?

Her confidence rises as she hears him say the word "heart." She tells him that she doesn't want anything from him. He raises his head and looks at her curiously. She continues on, saying that she has something for him. She says that since she has his heart, his soul, his mind, his spirit, his body, his life that it's only fair that he gets her heart, her soul, her mind, her spirit, her body, her life.

He stares at her, as though he doesn't believe what he's heard. She leans over and whispers in his ear that she means every word. He's locked into a deep trance, mesmerized by her every move, and she thinks that it's quite possible that he didn't hear what she whispered at all.

She pulls back and touches his cheek lightly, feeling his breath catch in his throat. And from the moment that her hand brushes against his skin, she's not entirely sure if she's breathing either. Suddenly she doesn't know what to do. He's caught her in his snare, and she can't get out. She isn't so sure that she wants to.

She shuts her eyes for a moment and opens them, the snare released. She gently, timidly, scoots closer and presses her lips lovingly against his.

And then there is nothing.

There is just him and her. She can feel him pressing back lightly, his arms coming around her waist. She doesn't know where he learned how to kiss like this, though she suspects that it isn't the fact that she is kissing a good kisser, but the fact that she's kissing him, that makes her fall into heaven.

She knows, in this instant, that she's found love. She knows what it is. It's a five-foot-five childish teenager with light blue arrows laid on top of soft skin. It's a pair of humble gray eyes that radiate kindness and understanding. It's a smile so wide that it could stretch across the stars. It's two hands that can do so much harm, but never want to. It's a touch here, a hand holding there. It's a midnight walk in the moonlight, a head on a shoulder. It's a warm kiss on the coldest day, a hug in the night. It's a deep appreciation, a feeling. She knows that the only way to understand love is to experience it.

She doesn't know when it started. She can't pinpoint the exact moment that she felt it. But she can remember the first time that they both felt it together. She can remember when she gave her heart, her soul, her mind, her spirit, her body, her life to the boy with the arrow on his head.

A/N: Love it? Hate it? Wish to constructively criticize it? Then click the little blue button in the bottom left!


	2. Toph

I was on such a kick writing the Katara one that I had to do this one. This is for Tokka, as told by Toph.

She never asked to be blind. If she had a choice, she wouldn't be. She'd like to see what the fuss is all about when she hears them talking about the colorful light of rainbows or the incredible beauty of the eternity of the ocean and the sky. But most of all she wants to see him.

He doesn't seem to look at her. She can feel his eyes, and they're never on her. They're on his boomerang or his sister or the Avatar or the flying bison or the lemur that's constantly stealing his dinner. It's when she feels his eyes on the girls in the streets that she wishes that she couldn't feel his eyes at all. She can feel his heartbeat speed up a little bit when he does this. She doesn't think that she could feel that subtle of a change in the waterbender or the Avatar, but she spends so much time listening to his heart that she can tell. It's a very peaceful rhythm.

She hears everything. She tries to block out all of it. She wants to hear nothing but his heart in his chest. She wants to feel nothing but his arms around her. But she doubts she'll ever have that. She rarely gets what she wants.

She doesn't want, for example, for her heart to break every day. But it does. He's getting older and he's not interested in younger girls anymore. He's looking for a girl with more to offer, who's prettier than she is. He thinks of her as a friend, who is fun for him to tease and is good for teasing him back.

He offers to teach her to swim when they're by a river one day. They are alone, with the others restocking supplies. He tells her that it's fun and easy and that he won't let her drown. Then he adds that she has to promise not to earthbend the bottom of the river and destroy him if she gets frustrated. She tells him that she doesn't get frustrated, and he asks if she's lost her memory. She forms an earth tent around herself and changes into her undergarments since she doesn't have bathing suit. She's never had a bathing suit, but she knows that the others go in the water with their undergarments, so she guesses that it's okay.

She steps out of the tent and asks him if he's ready, trying hard not to wonder what he thinks of her wearing next to nothing. She knows what she wants him to think- and she knows that she shouldn't want him to think that- but she just can't help it.

When he says nothing, she asks him again. He mutters as he asks her if she's looked in the mirror lately. She isn't sure what he means by this comment, but she puts her hands on her hips and gives him what she hopes is a huffy look.

He apologizes quickly and says that sometimes he forgets that she's blind. She is just so self-assured and headstrong and agile that he doesn't feel like she's handicapped at all. She isn't sure whether to take this as a complement or as an insult to people with disabilities. She decides that he probably means it as neither, so she'll just take it as a complement.

He grabs her hand and leads her eagerly toward the water, and she's glad that he can't sense heartbeats, because he would know that there's something funny about hers. He pulls her into the surf, splashing around happily.

The minute the icy cold water touches her bare skin is the minute that she tries to leave it. He's still got a hold of her hand, so she can't move. He urges her to come in and insists that it isn't all that cold. She retorts that he grew up in the South Pole, so he wouldn't know cold water if it danced naked in front of his face. He laughs lightly and then takes advantage of her lessened vibration senses by wrapping his arms around her waist as he carries her into the water. She attempts to protest, but she enjoys the feeling of his strong, muscular arms around her skinny waist.

He drops her not-so-gracefully in water that's about waist deep on her. She goes under and pulls her head back up, splashing him with the excess water. He spits the water out like it's poisonous, and she laughs at his antics. Then she asks him if he's ever going to teach her how to swim.

He instructs her to move her arms in a paddling motion like he's demonstrating. She says that she's worried about him, since he obviously suffers from memory loss.

She feels him blush and he moves behind her and takes her wrists in his hands. She tries not to think about their nearness as he jabbers on about how to move her arms. Then, he moves them for her. She tells him that she's got the movement, and, much to her disappointment, he steps away from her, swirling the water around them as he crosses in front of her.

She knows that she can do the movement right, but she does it incorrectly on purpose, happy to feel him come behind her again and take her hands again. He goes through the steps extra slowly this time, taking care to make sure that she understands exactly how it's supposed to go. And all the while he keeps his head right above her shoulder, right next to her ear. She is once again thankful that he can't hear her heart, since it must be pretty loud if it's the only sound that she can hear.

He releases her arms and steps away as she does the steps perfectly this time. He smiles and tells her that the next part should be easy for her. It's just kicking her legs, and she has perfect mastery of that particular art considering how many times she's kicked him in the shins. She smiles sheepishly and kicks her legs below the water. He sticks his head under with a large splash, and comes back up saying that she's got it.

He states that now all she has to do is put the motions together. He instructs her to lay flat on top of the water. She asks what she's going to do with her head. He explains that she has to turn it to the side like she's on the ground on her stomach. Then, he says, all that she has to do is kick and paddle at the same time.

The coordination is easier said than done. She tries, but looks like a flailing lemur and sinks to the bottom, which, luckily, isn't very far from the top. Much to her frustration and his amusement. She gives him a light punch on the shoulder and he shuts up, trying to remember how he learned how to swim. He snaps his fingers and tells her to get on her stomach again, but she demands that he tells her exactly what she is doing before he attempts to drown her.

He tells her- in a voice that's almost too sincere for him- that he's not going to let her drown, and that she ought to get on her stomach before he leaves her stranded in the lake. She does as he says, but not without first rolling her eyes at him.

The water swarms around her and, she kicks at it, about to go down, but she feels his hands come under her stomach to support her.

His hands cause something in both of them. Their heartbeats speed up, until she can't distinguish one from the other. They've become a jumbled mess, sporadic beats throwing off her senses so that she can't feel any vibrations around her anymore, save for the lapping of water at her sides and his calloused hands on her bare stomach.

He whispers, almost silently, for her to try the movements now. She won't fall, since he's got his hands on her.

Cautiously, she lets herself go through the maneuvers, becoming more confident as she does them more and more. She exclaims that she's doing it and he mutters happily that she certainly is.

He lets go. She keeps going and is moving through the water away from him. She can feel is eyes for the first time trained on her. She's all he's looking at at this very moment.

She stops and yells out at him, realizing that she can't feel any vibrations, any movement whatsoever. She might as well be lost in a black void of nothingness, the sense that she relies on now gone. She's scared, and her voice lets him know it. He calls that he's coming and tells her not to go anywhere.

She stays put, but feels something pulling her away. In an instant, she knows it's a current. She also knows that swimming against a current does absolutely nothing. So all that she can do is yell for him.

She thrashes wildly, memories of the Serpent's Pass flooding back to her. She feels like the helpless and frightened little girl her parents always thought that she was. She holds her head above water, though just barely, as she gasps for breath.

She feels him coming closer as she drifts farther down the current. He is a strong swimmer, but he's no match for the current. So he swims alongside of it. He reaches out and ropes an arm around the first bit of her he touches, which happens to be the small of her back.

She flies out of the current, her hands colliding with his shoulders, his staying put on her back. Neither of them do anything, and she can sense that he's staring right into her eyes. That feeling of their heartbeats returns, this rhythm more wild and chaotic than the last.

She feels his fingers wander across her back in a dance so slight that only someone with her senses could detect the alteration. She can feel her hands pressed against his shoulders, and the cool, wet skin below them. She can feel everything about him, they are so close. She can feel his breathing speed up. She can feel his blood pump through his body more quickly than usual. She can feel his temperature rising steadily. But most of all, she can feel his heart beat. And she knows what she wants to ask him.

Timidly, she wonders if she can see his face. For a moment, he's confused by what she means, but then he comprehends. He tells her go ahead, and she tells him to close his eyes so that she doesn't accidentally poke them out.

She starts out by putting her hands on his cheeks, sliding them down to his smooth cheekbones. She traces lines all over his face: across his tiny nose, briefly brushing past his eyes and tickling her fingers with his eyelashes. He mutters her name, but the noise is so quiet that she can't be sure that she hasn't imagined it.

She reaches his lips and hesitantly pulls away, but he returns her hands there. His lips are so soft under touch, smaller than she imagined. She shifts her hands to cover each side of his lips and swears that she feels him smiling.

She takes her hands off his face and puts her hand on top of his heart. It's a completely foolish move, but she feels it skip a beat the moment she makes contact with his skin. He slowly inches his hand toward her heart, placing it there gently. She smirks at him, and he's knows that he's done something right.

Her smirk fades and she knows exactly what this is leading to. But she's not going to do anything; she's too afraid that he's just caught up in the moment. He isn't just caught up in a moment. She knows because the next thing he does is lean down and kiss her.

She takes her hand off of his heart, but she can still feel it. As she leans in and gives herself to this perfect moment, she notices a change in the rhythm of their hearts. No longer do they produce two separate, chaotic beats, but one. Two hearts blended into one, keeping perfect time with each other. She knows that people's hearts don't randomly harmonize. She knows that this is the rhythm of two hearts in love.

She never asked to be blind. If she had a choice, she wouldn't be. But right now it doesn't matter. Because right now, they are both blind. Blind to the world, blind to their troubles, blind to their issues. Their eyes are closed, their bodies are touching, their lips are locked, and it's never felt so good to be blind.

A/N: Hmm... I feel like Sokka may be a little OOC. Anyone else think that? You can tell me by reviewing!


	3. Zuko

Another chapter for those who care! And if you really care, you should review! Even if you don't really care, you should review!

**Disclaimer (I always seem to forget these...):** Surprise! I own Avatar! Yeah, right. I only own Avatar in my dreams.

He wonders what would have happened. He wonders what could have happened that night, if he hadn't left her standing, alone and confused. He knows what did happen. Now he wants to find out what could have happened.

He isn't sure why she keeps coming back to the tea shop, even after he ran off from their date. But she comes. She comes every day without stopping. He'll never look her in the eye, though. When he sees her out of the corner of his eye, he doesn't mind as much since all he sees is a girl that he barely recognizes.

But when he looks at her- directly in the eye- he just stops. The world spins around him in a hustle and bustle more hustled and bustled than usual. Him and her stand still; she being the only thing that he can see in the swirl of colors. He stares at her, her long, dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes loving and sweet. And beautiful. He always forgets to add beautiful into his thoughts about her because he already knows she the most beautiful girl- woman- he's ever seen, but he adds it anyway. Every time he thinks about her.

And then reality throws itself around him like a lasso and pulls him back into it, usually in the presence of a broken tea cup or an angry boss. He's dropped something again or run into someone else. The way his boss looks at him reminds him of the violent expression on his father's face that day. Then he reaches up and touches his scar lightly, sneaking another glance at the woman he can only fantasize about before returning to reality. This is how it always happens. He doubts that the routine will ever change.

One day it does change. Lately, he's become so entwined in his own heartstrings that he doesn't even need to see her to fall into her trance. And one morning, when the shop is next to empty, he falls into his trance and then he wakes up again. He wakes up by bumping right into her.

His cheeks turn red and he averts his gaze, looking directly at the ground. She smiles at him like he hasn't hurt her; like that date was the most perfect night of her life. She's so in love that she's willing to give the quiet, mysterious tea shop man a second chance. And he's so in love that he highly doubts that he can go another day with the memory and thoughts of what could have happened still stuck in his head. He's so in love that he needs to know.

They both reach down to pick up the fallen tray, and, like so many cliché moments he's seen in plays, their hands brush against one another. Their eyes meet and his drift so quickly back to the ground. She doesn't release his hand as she stands up, but rather pulls him along with her. He doesn't let go.

She lets a single word form on her lips: "Why?" And he has no answer. He focuses on his shoes and wonders how he can't even answer her simple question. He supposes it's because the question in itself is quite simple, but the answer is complicated, just like he told her that night.

He repeats himself, telling her that it's complicated. She tells him that complicated is nothing when two people love each other.

He's never really acknowledged that love exists. His life was so devoid of it before that he just doesn't really feel it. He's always thought that it was meant for some people, but not for him. He always thought that he was independent. He needed no one to tell him how to feel, and he needed no one to help him heal.

She says that she wants to try again with him; she realizes that someone's hurt him in the past, and she wants to help him overcome it. She puts her other hand on his cheek, feeling the scar tissue that he's run his fingers over so many times.

But when she touches it, it's different. It's not a hideous, repulsive mark on his face that serves as a reminder of one of the few truly evil people in the world and the day that he proved it. It becomes, when she touches it, just skin. And he loves it. He wishes that it was just skin.

He tries to dodge the question; he tries to get out of it by saying that he has work to do. But she's good at reading people and he's a bad liar. She holds on to his arm and informs him that she is not leaving until he answers her question; she doesn't care if he says yes or no.

He hesitates. He wants to say yes- really, really, _really_ wants to say yes- but the ever looming thoughts of the Avatar and his honor plague him. He can't bear to give up on his quest just yet, but she justs looks so damn pretty, standing there with pleading eyes that stared right into his heart. Eyes that he couldn't say no to. But he couldn't say yes either. Nor could he leave her there without an answer.

So he told her he'd think about it.

She sighed and dropped his arm as he turned away, and then called his name out softly, yet forcefully. He stubbornly repeated that he'd already said he'd think about it. She opened her mouth, and he knew that it was pretty much over. He knew that she would tell him not to bother; that she'd take that as a no and he would never have to worry about her again.

But that didn't happen. Nor did any varied scenario of that same ending occur. No. In fact, she practically jumped on him, nearly knocking him over. He realized at that moment how little he understood about girls.

She relaxed her energy as he wrapped his arms apprehensively around her, but her intensity- the intensity of that embrace- did not leave. It grew, actually, when the air in his chest seemed to be pulled taught like strings as she whispered in his ear. She told him that she didn't even care what his real answer would be. She knew that there was a reason that he ran out on their last date, and if he really couldn't be with her, then she would stop complicating things. But, she said, she just wouldn't be able to go on without knowing what he wanted to say.

And instantly, just in a whisper, he said one simple word that just made it even worse. Y-E-S.

She stepped back, leaving her hands on his shoulder. His stayed on her waist. It wasn't that he didn't want to end the moment before he hurt either of them more; it was just that his hands refused to remove themselves from her warm, comforting body.

She told him that she understood why- she knew why. She _really_ knew why. Everything warm about that moment was blown out the window by the cold air that her words brought down upon the two of them.

He couldn't say that she broke his heart by saying that, for there was more than one crack in it. He couldn't say that she shattered his heart either, for that would imply that it was over quickly. He could say that she cracked his heart, for that meant that there was more than one break, and the pain would not end quickly.

And then- much to his shock- she said that she knew, and she didn't care. He was so confused, so exuberant, so eager, so angst-filled all at once that he couldn't respond at that moment.

But he didn't have to worry about responding, for she responded for him. She pressed her lips against his in a sweet, loving, yet intimate way, that affirmed the fact that she knew who he was and she didn't care. He thought this odd; most who knew of his history immediately shunned him or tried to kill him.

And now, here she was, kissing him, loving him, in spite of his awful past; his awful heritage. So he did the only thing any semi-intelligent boy would: he returned the kiss. He returned with a fiery passion like only a firebender could, and he could feel her shiver under his hands that he had placed back on her waist.

He wonders what would have happened. He wonders what could have happened that night, if he hadn't left her standing, alone and confused. He's found out what could have happened, only it happened a little later and a little differently than anticipated. And so the world spun around them again, like it had in his fantasies, but this time it was no dream. It was actually happening. His heart wasn't cracked anymore. It had never been broken, for broken things could not be fixed. It had never been shattered, for shattered things are in too small of parts to be put back together. It had been cracked, but all he had needed was for someone to fill in the cracks. In fact, his heart had been cracking slowly and steadily from the moment his mother left. But here she was. Here she was, kissing him, filling up each little crack, one by one.


End file.
